Monday, 3 December 2012

Every industry has quirks and things
that to them are massively important but seem minute to the rest of society. I
have managed to end up in an industry which has more than its fair share. In
marketing we spend hours and days worrying and discussing about even the
smallest changes to product taglines. It might sound bizarre to you but if you
are the head of marketing for Ronseal and you wanted to change “it does exactly
what it says on the tin” you would have to jump through more hoops than a seal
at Seaworld.

One of the reasons I love my
industry so much is this relative importance placed on things that to the causal
observer seem so small but in reality do actually matter a lot. For example much
as been made of the recent change to the logo of online auction house e-bay. Did
you notice it, probably not, but it lead to one of my favourite tweets regarding
a change which simply read “surely it’s just been on a
diet”.

So here are some quotes regarding an
upcoming re-brand “The rebrand is about cementing the relationship in viewers”,
“The logo is a form of human handwriting. It’s curvy and warmer than we have
been in the past and in comparison with competitors feels distinct and true to
us.” That, dear readers, came from ITV group marketing and research director
Rufus Radcliffe talking about a re-brand of the ITV logo happening in January.

January will see the first major
rebrand of ITV since 2006 when you will see it drop the “1” and revert back to
simply “ITV”. They are also changing the logo, as the quote gives away, to a new
curvy style whose colours will change according to the tone of the programme it
is promoting. So keeping it current it might be brown and green when promoting
IACGMOOH.

But why is this important and what’s
the point. Well ITV has been through and come out the other side of a very
difficult period in its history. Only a few years ago it was struggling against
the growth of satellite and cable television channels, the internet and a
reduction in ad rates. Fast forward to today and ITV is in good health. It increased revenues by 4pc to £1.57bn in the nine
months to 30 September, thanks to sales from its production arm, ITV Studios,
which rose by a fifth to £498m, helped by the success of hit shows such
as Downton Abbey.

The re-brand allows ITV to clearly
position itself against its rivals, nicely described by Mr Radcliffe as: “Being
at the heart of popular culture is the purpose behind the ITV brand. The BBC’s
is to educate and entertain; Channel 4’s is a mission with mischief”. I was most
pleased to see that they did not spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on
consultants to do this but trusted their own internal creative team to come up
with the goods, an unfortunately rare decision when these things occur.

So this may not even register with
you or you might raise a slight flicker of acknowledgement when the logo changes
in January. However to some of us even if we don’t like to new logo we admire
the thought and reasoning behind it and hope that it helps to continue the
turnaround in a national institution.

Tim Youngman is head of digital
marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman

About Me

My name is Tim Youngman, I am director of marketing for a regional newspaper group in the UK.
This blog contains the columns I write on media, marketing and technology for the Eastern Daily Press newspaper in the UK www.edp24.co.uk England's largest selling regional morning newspaper.
You can find our more about me here:
www.linkedin.com/in/timyoungman
and follow me on twitter @timyoungman